Mega Man Zero was quite good but it's extremely hard. I actually died at the boss fight in the opening level! I've been wanting to get the Mega Man Zero collection for the DS for awhile.

Tony Hawk 2 was also had a surprisingly good version on the GBA. It was the first game I bought with my GBA when it came out. There's probably no reason to play it over the console versions today but when I bought it back in 2001 it was mind blowing.

I had a lot of fun with the first F-Zero game that came out on it as well.

Sadly I didn't play my GBA as much as some people because I bought the launch version. That screen was extremely hard to see compared to the previous Game Boy models. Maybe because there were less colors or something? Nintendo really should have backlit the thing from day one.

Retro STrife wrote:I'll be watching this topic closely.... I've been setting up my new shelf of handheld systems in my gameroom and realized that I only own like 5 to 10 GBA games. So I'll try to pick up some more. Keep the list going!

The GBA was actually my first Nintendo handheld. I had no interest in the Game Boy or Pokemon craze before that, so I never owned one. (In fact, Christmas of 1997, I choose the newly-released Game.com over the Game Boy Pocket! Not very smart..I know.) Back then on the GBA, I recall owning and beating Golden Sun, Advance Wars, and Sonic Advance. I also used it to play some of the re-releases of SNES games that I had missed out on as a kid, like Yoshi's Island and Zelda: Link to the Past. In the past 5+ years, the only GBA game I've played and beaten was Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. But really, none of these mentioned games stick out as memorable to me, except Advance Wars, which was very good. I ended up playing the DS a lot more.

How does Yoshis Island play on the GBA? I ask because that's my favorite game of all time, and while I recently got a NES Classic (my only gaming "system" at the moment) , I'm actually considering letting it go and grabbing a GBA SP with the classic Mario 2D ports and the Metroids instead. That's really all I play anyway, and may be better suited for my particular gaming habits.

But I wanted to see how those Mario games translated to the GBA beforehand. Thanks.

Voor wrote:How does Yoshis Island play on the GBA? I ask because that's my favorite game of all time, and while I recently got a NES Classic (my only gaming "system" at the moment) , I'm actually considering letting it go and grabbing a GBA SP with the classic Mario 2D ports and the Metroids instead. That's really all I play anyway, and may be better suited for my particular gaming habits.

But I wanted to see how those Mario games translated to the GBA beforehand. Thanks.

As far as I recall, just as good as the SNES, besides the smaller screen. I didn't do much with the Mario games, but I played Link to the Past to completion on there and don't remember having any issues. No downgrade in quality. And they were well-received by critics at the time too as good ports.

The main issue with the Mario games on GBA is they added some annoying voice work. For Mario Advance 1 I think it's pretty limited and never got on my nerves much but for Yoshis Island they added the annoying Yoshi voice that started with yoshis story and it is annoying enough to force me to play on mute a lot of the time.

Other changes include:

In Mario Advance 2 they lowered the difficulty by adding more health pickups. I find the original too difficult so I like this change.

For Mario Advance 2: Mario World, I don't think there is much changed in the sound department but the game is much easier as when you get hit when you have a fire flower or cape you only lose the power up and go to super Mario form rather than turning small. This makes the game too easy in my opinion.

Mario Advance 3: Yoshis Island had the irritating voice work and some minor graphical changes (not improvements) in at least one level, the countdown timer is slowed making the game slightly easier (see a trend?), and they added some new bonus levels.

Mario advance 3 feels the least changed when I play it. I'm sure there are some differences but I think overall this is a great port. If you have an e-reader you can get level cards to add to the game, although not many were released in the US. Noteworthy about this is that the Wii U release includes all the releases level cards in it, including the ones that weren't released outside Japan. I bought it on Wii U purely for this reason.

Yoshi's Island is not only an excellent port, but each world has an additional "secret" level after you beat the game (not to be confused with the "extra" levels you unlock after getting 100% completion in a world), which edges it out over the SNES version in my opinion. Plus it's Yoshi's Island on the go. How can you go wrong?

Voor wrote:Thanks for the replies. I'll check and see if there's a GBA SP and Yoshis island at the localnused game exchange.

You need the later SP 101 model, I believe, to enjoy the backlight. Alternately, while not as comfortable and the game cart sticks out at the bottom, a DS lite is a good option. There are also chinese portables out there.

Thanks to you guys, and the Critic's review, and a quick look over at the GameRankings' GBA rankings, I've bought a few games lately on ebay. Most noteworthy were Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga, a couple Crash Bandicoot games (n-Tranced and Huge Adventure), and Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. I'm most excited about starting Aria of Sorrow once it shows up. I realized that Symphony of the Night is one of my top 10 games ever and yet I've never played through another Castlevania game, which is pretty dumb of me. Aria of Sorrow seems to be of similar style to SotN, so I'm looking forward to it.

Does anyone else feel that the GBA library is pretty vast and maybe a bit overwhelming? I look on amazon often for games and I seem to stumble upon games I never knew existed. I just found out there was a Shinobi game and a Crazy Taxi game on the system.

Here are some games I have that I find noteworthy.

Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance: This game plays surprisingly a lot like the console version. Easy to pull off special moves, and a nice size krypt.

Tony hawk: Downhill Jam: The GBA version has graphics that remind me of Dirt Trax FX on the SNES where the textures are blocky and bland, and the character models in this game aren’t too well defined, but that just adds to the charm.

Crash Bandicoot: Purple/ Spyro: Orange – I have this in a combo cartridge, and although it is basically the same minigames over and over, I still find it fun.

Mario tennis: Power Tour: This is your basic Mario tennis game, but you can create your own character and build their stats.

NHL 2002: this game plays a lot like NHL 96/97/98 for the Genesis! The gameplay is a little fast

Final Round Golf 2002: This is an arcade style golf game by konami. Nice graphics and ESPN presentation.

Frogger’s adventures/Frogger’s Journey: These games are great and take the classic frogger gameplay to a whole new level, and can get pretty challenging.

Altered beast: Guardian of the realms: I recently got this game and it’s like an extended version of the Genesis game. The levels seem to be tedious, cluttered, and overly long.

What did everyone think about the Mario kart: Super Circuit? It wasn’t one of my favorites, as I found the controls to be not as tight as in other games in the series.